


Sexy Space Pirates

by Shatterpath



Series: The 13 AUs of Christmas 2017 [3]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alex in any universe is a badass, Aliens, Alternate Universe - Brainships, Alternate Universe - Space, Gen, Pre-Relationship, Slow Burn, Space Pirates, Team as Family, What-If
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2018-02-06
Packaged: 2019-02-15 02:57:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13021794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shatterpath/pseuds/Shatterpath
Summary: When Captain Danvers and the Brainship Kara with their small crew on hand make a raid against Max Lord's frigate, they find more than the supplies they were after to steal!For the thirteen AUs of Christmas, my author wrote for me,A cheesy filk sung badly,Luthors who aren't evil,Sexy Space pirates,





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this one is a bit out there, I admit it! It was also supposed to be much longer, but this first part stands on its own and I have solid hopes of getting more of this universe done. In truth, I was absolutely making this up as I went along, going back and editing until everything sounded reasonably coherent. 
> 
> I guess this is a 'what if Humanity was well established as a space-faring culture by modern times?'

Everything was fine; quiet, boring and uneventful, until it wasn't.

The Imperial Frigate lurched to port as hyperspace bubbled outward to smash into its bulky hull with the pure energy of the cosmos. It was a dangerous move, one that could crush the offending ship with even more deadly energy than the intended victim, but not this time. Like a bullet from a gun, wreathed in destructive gasses, burst a sleek starship.

And a bullet she was, tapered from nose to the main engine held between the triple backswept wings. Her entirely unnecessary aerodynamics made her a unique beauty, her nearly mirrored surface reflecting the cosmos around her like art splashed onto her sides.

Shaking her head and blinking away the dumpshock of leaving hyperspace so violently with practiced ease, Alex quickly took stock of the situation, hands flying over the console. "Good exit Kara, by the way that behemoth is listing it'll be nearly on its back in a few minutes."

"Thanks!" chirped the ship, smile clear in her voice. "It's an art. But we have a problem."

"Yeah, I'm seeing that. Dammit, this thing wasn't supposed to be a Goliath-class!"

"No, but we can use that in our favor. There's a small zone on the underbelly where I can hide, probably for a good long time, if we act now."

"The dump n' hunch?"

"Exactly!"

"Do it." Toggling the comm implanted behind her ear with the dental implant, Alex barked with authority, "Change in plan. We can't take on a Goliath, so dump the junk and get ready to play ninja."

Winn whined even as Kara whipped around her smooth starship body to dive back at the wobbly Imperial ship, trailing out a couple holds worth of junk out behind her. No one liked the stinking mess onboard, but it did come in handy sometimes. Skinning along the frigate's side, Kara slipped beneath it, a remora to a shark.

"Alex, this is a pretty fancy ship… and I can't crack the encoding on their transmissions. Maybe this isn't such a good idea?"

Even as her eyes scanned over the frigate's hull, Alex pondered the nervous comment. Still, they were broke, dangerously so, and couldn't pass this opportunity up. Not to mention the foodstuffs getting low enough that even eating was becoming a chore.

"There! That's the spot."

Kara needed no help docking, servo arms slithering from her hull to grapple her bulk into the shadows of some jutting piece of the frigate's superstructure. The hidey spot was perfect, unlikely to be stumbled over being so close to the gargantuan engines where the radiation was so dangerously high it would test even Kara's 0.shielding.

Jumping up to gather her gear, Alex spoke seriously to her soulmate, her sister in all but genetics. "I actually agree with you on the not great idea, but we can't pass up an opportunity to tick onto this beast. You link up as best you can and I'll get the others mobilized."

"Okay. Love you, be careful."

"Love you too, sis. I will be."

The crew met in the main living chamber to go over gear and a plan or four. They were a motley lot of random species and skills that had fallen together under Alex's leadership. She'd known J'onn her whole life, the Green Martian warrior as good as another parent to her. With her own folks no sorts of warriors at all, he had been a natural to keep to her side while on the run with Kara to keep her out of the greedy hands that would once more enslave her. 

He and James weren't happy with the idea of splitting up, but they were both large bodied and would be cramped to the point of uselessness in the access tubes of the frigate. However, they would accompany Winn to whatever loading bay they were going to 'borrow'. At least once Alex had finished poking at the excitable cyborg's fiddly neural circuits and gave him an affectionate head-slap to finish the job. When he got too worked up, Winn's cybernetics would get a little glitchy and only Alex seemed to be able to soothe the quirk. Lucy would go with their captain, the perfect partner for this hit. She was physically small, well-trained by her past life with the military, quick as a cats she resembled and twice as mean.

With the change in plan came a change in gear, the men arming and armoring up more heavily while the smaller women did just the opposite. Light composite armor more like thick cloth, dark and soft to let them blend into the shadows, cooling packs to stave off overheating, water recycling units meant for desert use to recycle moisture from the body and the surroundings, light weapons that would be quiet and easy to draw.

And a plethora of mini-grenades for a variety of occasions. Because neither of them went off ship without them. That way lay disaster. 

"Alex, I'm really nervous. Will you humor me and take Susan with you? Please?"

Susan was the semi-affectionate moniker for the military killing machine they had picked up drifting in space, three of its six limbs blasted off, circuitry fried. After it had defaulted to some mystery programming three different times and tried to kill anything that moved, Alex had insisted they shove the thing in a crate and forget about it. But Winn and Kara had persisted and swore up and down they finally had it firmly reprogrammed. It had been quietly shadowing Alex for weeks now, that lone eye-lens watching every move she made, tame as a well-heeled dog and really, having it at her back had a certain high-adrenaline appeal.

"Okay. But light armament. We'll need hand to hand and possibly a mule more than a razor-ball of death."

"Already done. She's in the airlock, waiting."

"Pushy," Alex teased fondly and headed out at a relaxed jog to get this show on the road.

As promised, 5-UAN-- the only part of the drone's designation left on its damaged hull when they found it-- was clinging to the ceiling in defiance of the artificial gravity. It… she, looked somewhat insect-like, with two larger body segments each with three highly maneuverable limbs, and a tapered head with that lone eye and a bristle of sensors. The heavier gun attachments were empty and soft armor like the Humans covered the shiny body of the drone.

"Okay, Susan, you ready to be a full member of the crew?"

"Yes, Captain," the drone replied in that soft, unemotional woman's voice it used. 

Lucy barely stifled her derisive noise, but Alex understood better than almost anyone in the galaxy to not assume with machines. Really only Lois knew… and Non, but Alex ruthlessly shoved that old pain away. While she would never forget her meeting with the enemy brainship Astra that she had been forced to destroy, she couldn't dwell on losing her either.

Twelve hours later, sore and aching from creeping around the Imperial ship like an invading virus, Alex woke from a power nap. Even her small noise woke Lucy to coiled danger and had Susan swiveling her head around. "All clear," the drone intoned softly in its-- her flat voice. "Kara and Winn report there are two prisoners onboard."

"Two, huh? That means hostages, not POWs(1). Can you show me what schematics we have so far?"

Sitting up and stretching in the cramped confines of the access tube, Alex twisted the kinks out of her back and knees. Details always made or broke assaults like this. And getting them was slow going, a delicate dance that could go very wrong very fast. Uncovering the monitor built into her left gauntlet, Alex studied what they had. Honestly, it was more than she expected, several routes of escape possible. The boys, with Kara's help in nudging at the frigate's computers, had already routed months of food and power into a transport container that was just barely small enough for Kara to take into a hold. 

"Four hours on the inside, six max," J'onn reassured her in a quiet conference over the comms. 

"Okay. Plenty of time to plant some surprises to help us get away."

"You did see who was onboard?"

"J'onn!" Kara hissed, but the big Martian didn't look at all apologetic, but more like a quiet volcano looking for a target. A glance at her monitor and that smarmy grin she would love to forget made Alex growl.

"Lord."

 

\----

Max Lord had to be truly desperate for this gambit, Lena seethed to herself. Did he really think that Mother would acquiesce to his demands over her, the bastard half-breed youngest child? Or that Lex wouldn't hunt him down and ruthlessly stamp him into his component atoms?

Though Lena wasn't certain that latter would be to avenge her or for the madness that was becoming more and more obvious in her beloved brother.

A sudden squawk from Jess startled Lena from her brooding thoughts. There was a gasp and a thud from the next room and Lena was on her feet in an instant.

"Jess!"

Her companion was sprawled out on the floor, unconscious and half dressed. Dropping to her knees, Lena went to check her pulse and froze.

A dart.

Looking around frantically, her insides turned to ice with terror to see a Generation 12 Extermination Drone slinking down the wall like silent death. Oh, she knew exactly what the machine was, after all, she had helped design them. But what the hell was one doing here? They were one of the most tightly controlled devices in the Galactic League! 

Caught between animal terror and intellectual curiosity, Lena couldn't move, her eyes trained on what would surely be her death. A pair of people dropping out of her bedroom ceiling were almost mundane by comparison. 

"Good job, Susan," the taller one said, her voice soft and feminine with an unmistakable steely authority. Unbelievably, the drone stopped its menacing advance and seemed to stand down, head tilting almost… curiously. Then the shocks built when the blandly pleasant default voice spoke with what Lena would swear was an impossible edge of humor

"Thank you, Captain. Resistance was minimal."

Chuckling, the biped who had spoken reached up to pull off her hood and shake out jaw-length hair. Lena could only gape. Certainly for the shock value of having a dangerous stranger and her pet killer drone in her personal space, but also because she looked to be one of the rare pureblood Humans. Over many generations of body modification to suit the myriad of environments encountered by interstellar travel, true Humans had become downright exotic.

That she was sinfully attractive was incidental. Really.

A slow, wicked grin spread over the woman's face and Lena wasn't entirely certain if the expression was enticing or alarming. And why did she seem so familiar? 

"Well, isn't this an interesting twist in the tale."

Two fishbowl helmets with floppy environ suits attached were dropped at Lena's feet and she recoiled. "I'm not going with you!"

The Extermination Drone stood up taller and the invader casually brandished a streamlined energy weapon whose barrel vents glowed a misleadingly placid blue.

"It wasn't a request, Princess."

And so Lena found herself hunched up uncomfortably between her new captor and the other female she had gleaned was named Lucy. Jess and the small amount of belongings they'd been kidnapped with were strapped snugly to the back of the drone. The only things of real value were squirreled away on her person.

For all the good it might do her.

Every sense straining, Alex was on full alert, barely able to distantly appreciate that her unexpected sentient cargo was at least smart enough to be well-behaved. She'd been surprised by the beauty of the younger woman but ruthlessly shoved aside the instant attraction to the royal. Mixing business with pleasure rarely worked out.

So far, they had remained invisible to the crew and sensors of the big frigate, but Alex's well-honed sense of danger was ticking rapidly towards the red zone. And as usual, her instincts were right on target, a pulse blaster nearly taking her face off. The split-second of charge-whine in the quiet warned her, reflex jerking her back into Lena, who squawked.

All hell broke loose.

"At least Lord is still arrogant enough to go with pulse blasters," Lucy commented calmly as they made a protective corner and she casually tossed a grenade to cover their asses. 

"All power and lousy accuracy," Alex snarled with an edge of laughter in her voice. She relished the danger, the thrill in her blood as she rode that razor edge. "Split it, three-four. Susan, grab our baggage and bring up the center."

Lena's noise of objection was mostly absorbed by the fishbowl helmet, not that anyone was paying her a lick of attention. The bipeds broke to the sides at unexpected angles to throw fire off, shooting back with their smaller and more accurate weapons. With a struggling Lena half tucked under her composite body and half dragged, Susan raced right at the shocked crewmen.

Wincing at the loss of life-- these idiots weren't even proper soldiers-- Alex was forced to ignore the carnage and concentrate on getting out of this alive.

"We're right above you," she barked at the rest of her crew. "Lock it down and be ready to jettison the instant we're onboard. You ready, Kara?"

Even as the others acknowledged her orders and angry voices grew louder, she slapped instructions into a trio of grenades and pressed them to the floor before shooing the others back. Programmed to act as shaped charges, the grenades blew a hole in the floor that the pirates dove at. Agile as cats, Alex and Lucy dropped to the hold below, pinging off the walls to slow their fall. 

"Susan, come on! Drop the girl! I have her!"

The drone had already taken a couple of hits, the impacts smoking fabric and cracking her hull. Bracing half her six legs, Susan handed down the prisoners, only dropping them a bone-jarring distance and not a bone-breaking one. Lucy grabbed Jess and the sack of personal belongings, making a drag-dash to where the James met her to help. 

"Susan, come on!" Alex shouted over the heavy pulse throbs and the zippier whines of the pirate's lighter armament. Susan didn't so much obey as fall violently from the still-smoking hole in the ceiling, a crumpled mass of limbs and damaged exoskeleton.

"Captain," the drone said in that same quiet, dispassionate voice. "You must go, we cannot make it with my damages."

"Bullshit. You're crew now so get your damn feet under you and let's go!"

With J'onn's superpowered help, somehow the four mismatched entities stumbled their way to the storage container, pulse blaster fire pocking the deck around them the last few steps. Lena screamed in agony at the burn of molten metal and composite plastics where J'onn had been unable to shield her from the liquid shrapnel. They fell into a heap and the door nearly took their feet off, the container lurching violently as the hold explosively decompressed with the help of careful placed explosives.

Lena had led a pampered life. Even her irritating abduction by Max Lord's forces had been a civilized matter and her holding cell had been decently-appointed quarters, admittedly ones she was not allowed to leave. As the burning pain melted through her environ suit, Lena completely panicked. It took her a long, breathless moment of brain-fry to realize that the worst pain had lessened somewhat, the burn not threatening to melt her flesh from her bones.

The Extermination Drone had grabbed a large pinch of her sleeve, clamping it tightly in those deadly servo-hands. Certainly, her hand was going numb as well, but better that than the burning. But the Generation 12's were not programmed to… help. Yet, this one had. And was still helping.

The weightless, nausea-inducing freefall of no gravity lurched again, throwing people and cargo into the walls as the container was grabbed from the outside and roughly slammed back into gravity and a surface that shrieked through the container. Alex was already on her feet and slapping the controls to shoulder open the door and take off like a cheetah.

"Move it! We have an escape to sketch!" she roared and the rest of the crew raced after her, leaving Lena where she lay, clamped in the drone's grip with Jess unconscious beside her.

Oh, the frigate was unhappy about the breech, canon fire lighting up the endless dark of space. Kara was managing-- though that starboard sensor array was toast-- but she needed Alex's help. Kara was brilliantly smart and excelled at the nuts and bolts of being a brainship, but her instincts were lousy. She needed Alex for that. Panting and battered, her sister arrived and threw herself into the pilot pod, where the full-body controls locked around her in reassuring familiarity. 

Instantly, the brainship took on a fluidity the frigate could never match, its shots going wild. Like a mongoose teasing a cobra many times its size, Kara dipped and wove about the lumbering frigate while calculations were crunched and the hyperspace engine powered up.

The sisters were good at this dance.

In the pod, Alex's blood sang with joy as it did every time she got to do this. The best tech in the galaxy had gone into these ships, and even thirteen years out of date, what Kara's replacement body could do was amazing.

"Green light," Kara said tightly to indicate that she had her calculations in order and her engines straining to go. Now it was up to Alex to open them a window of opportunity. Breathing deep, she gripped the hand controls in sweaty fists and pressed into the pilot couch that conformed around her, her whole body behind her actions.

In the silence of the vacuum, the sleek ship whipped about like a leaf in a hurricane, while deadly lightning tried to catch it. It was a stalemate of speed versus brawn that was broken by a sudden and unexpected maneuver… as Kara dove for the frigate's bridge at blinding speed. It was a deadly game of chicken, the huge ship's canons having trouble tracking the inward maneuver, Kara needing a long, full second of real time to trigger her hyperspace engines…

"Better luck next time, Maxie!" Alex crowed as the brainship Kara vanished in a violent wave of energy that once more rocked the Imperial ship.

 

TBC…?

 

(1)= POWs- prisoners of war.


	2. Welcome Aboard Your Highness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex has to deal with the repercussions of the raid.
> 
> Lena makes a hell of a second impression.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, let's see how much mileage I can get out of this idea! -laughs- It won't be a regular schedule, but I'm hoping to get the whole story out there. Stay tuned!

Sighing with exhaustion and aching all over, Alex debated just falling asleep in the pilot pod. It wouldn't be the first time. She liked the pod, it was comfortable and the closest she would ever get to a hug from her sister.

But she had other things to attend to, like a couple of unexpected prisoners.

Toggling the pod cowl had it swinging up so that she could step out of the embrace of the mostly upright half-seated position the device held her body in. Stretching like a cat and making a stifled, undignified noise, she caught herself against the back of one of the normal seats in the cramped cockpit.

"You okay?" Kara asked gently. "Meat getting tired?"

There were few that could make that joke and Alex chuckled wryly at the gallows humor. "Lightheaded. Stars, I'm so tired I could sleep right here. Before you nag, medbay first then I promise my rack is my next stop."

"Fair. They're both still out."

"I suppose that's for the best."

Scrambling through the cramped confines of the ship with the expertise of a rat on its home turf, Alex slipped into the medbay. The girl Susan had darted rested in one of the padded seats, partially reclined to keep her limp body steady. The Luthor girl was locked into what looked like about eighty percent of their medical gear. Ugh, that was going to be expensive. Oh well, it was too late to second guess her decision to grab the hostages.

Susan first though. Kneeling beside her battered crewmember, Alex examined the extensive damages from the pulse blasters. "Glad to see your armor held up, Susan. Still, ouch. And this sensor array is trashed. Are you okay to function until I can get some sleep and then rifle storage to see what we can do about it?"

The drone tilted her insect-like head and Alex smiled a bit. As usual, Kara had been right about this chance taken with what seemed like ill-advised hope.

"Yes, Captain," Susan said and something in the delivery made Alex pause, her smile deepening. "Thank you."

"Like I said, you're crew now. We take care of each other. Rest your systems as best you can and we'll get on your repairs as soon as everyone rests and ensures Kara is sound."

Patting the drone's scarred carapace just as she would pat someone's back, Alex stood with a groan and shook off her soreness. Biopacks were wrapped around Lena's upper left arm and thigh, her environ suit long gone and a light blanket covering what the packs didn't. Peeking though the transparent window on the side, Alex could see the tiny servos in their gel environment busily repairing the charred skin and muscle left by the flying globs of melted deckplate. That arm might even scar with that level of damage, though the thigh should be no worse for wear.

"I'll keep her under for another ten hours or so," Kara said, anticipating Alex's questions. "It'll be less traumatic with that injury. She'll be out of it when she wakes though, because I'm having to be really careful."

Reaching out to almost touch the fine seams that ran in two parallel lines down each side of Lena's neck almost invisibly, Alex hummed in agreement. It was an intimacy she shouldn't take and she knew it. Still, the temptation to touch was there, to brush the faintly uneven, stiff edges of those nearly hidden indicators of species on the sleeping beauty.

Instead, she crossed her arms and did her best to force disinterest. For all the good it might do her.

\----

Woozy consciousness crept around the edges of the blackness that had padded Lena from her current circumstances. 

"Are you kidding me?" growled a faintly familiar voice she couldn't quite place in her disorientation. "No, Susan, seriously, you need to hold still or I will never get this damn thing in. Stubborn, stupid, pain in my ass, ah ha!" with a crow of triumph, whatever had been nagging the woman had apparently been solved. "Take that, LuthorCorp!"

That finished rousing Lena with a jerk.

Only to find that her muddy dreams were a mere reflection of her current circumstance.

The room was a clutter of equipment strapped and bolted to every surface like a bored child with a model kit and no instructions. Though the biopack strapped to her arm was a fairly sophisticated model at least.

"Good, glad we got that done. Run your di-ogs and I'll be back in awhile to check in on you."

Turning her head towards the voice, Lena was once again faced with her newest captor. She was stripped down to a paper-thin sleeveless top and a set of baggy coveralls tied loosely around her hips. Negligently shoving a multitool into a pocket, she swaggered over to tilt a monitor for more easy viewing for Lena.

"Good, you're awake. Sorry about the rough abduction, Maxie was rather pissed off about my shenanigans."

Something in that wolfish grin almost drove Lena to smile back, caught up in the charisma of this stranger. In the bright lights of the medical equipment her eyes were a rich brown like tilled fields, a once-common color grown rare as humanity broke down more and more into separate species.

As always, that thought pained Lena.

"You're Mertan," Alex noted, turning Lena's head to the side to once more eye the gill slits clamped tightly shut in the open air. "Kara had to be particularly fiddly with maintaining your health under anesthesia."

"Half," Lena snarled, jerking her chin out of the captain's admittedly gentle grip. How she despised being put on display like this, made to once again feel the shame of what she was.

"Do you have any special requirements?"

All Lena heard was the invasiveness of the question, not the calm and even kind way in which it was asked.

"How dare you!"

An imperiously raised hand made her nearly as angry. "Not invading your privacy, Princess. I am merely inquiring if there is anything you need to ensure your health and well-being while aboard my ship."

That brought Lena up short. She couldn't remember the last time anyone had enquired over something as mundane as her well-being. Particularly after a lifetime of being ostracized.

"It can be a touchy subject," Alex said with a soft edge that Lena really didn't want to respond to, but it tugged at her anyway. "If you do need anything let at least Kara know what we can do to help."

"Kara?" she asked more to change the subject that anything and Alex gestured around expansively.

"Your host, and the brain behind the ship, Kara Zor-El Danvers."

"Hi," said that same kind woman's voice she had heard while delirious earlier.

"Oh, you're the ship-mind."

No one moved, but it felt like she had crosshairs on her back and the temperature in the room dropped several degrees.

"No," Kara said just as softly, but her tone sounded… off, bruised almost. "I'm Kara. When my body started dying just like every other Kryptonian that entered Sol's yellow star system, I was forcibly abducted and encapsulated in a technology shell and given a replacement body that was this ship. A ship-mind is merely a very good computer program, not something with feelings."

Everything fell into place suddenly and her mouth ran off with no regard for what was surely a dicey situation. "Kara. Ancestors, you're Alexandra Danvers! You're that pirate that stole the brainship Kara!"

Alex's flat glare could have lasered apart a heavy dreadnaught's hull and was simultaneously as cold as deepest space. "Liberated," she said easily, but her body language was pure menace. "Liberated the brainship Kara from what was little better than slavery. Which is not at all what I did with you."

Despite her icy disdain and anger, Alex's hands were gentle where she peeled the biopack off of Lena's leg and checked the repaired flesh there. Nodding in satisfaction, she tossed it into the cleaning unit and once more glared at her charge.

"I remember now why we don't take strangers on board. If you'll stay here, Miss Luthor, Kara and Susan will finish tending your wounds. Do try and be nice, won't you? In the meantime, I have a crew to run and repairs to make."

With all that bristly energy having stomped off, Lena felt like she could breathe again, rubbing her forehead and sighing. Her brain felt muddy, her emotions shaky and the light to bright in her eyes. At least that last one she could mitigate a bit and shoved aside the exam light, resting more easily without the glare.

Feeling a little silly at addressing open air, Lena nonetheless hesitantly spoke up. "Kara? I hadn't meant to cause… offence, but I don't understand. The courts ruled the brainships had lost sentience after the… conversion."

"You mean the same courts that benefited keeping we few that survived in slavery?"

Lena had heard this bleeding heart rhetoric before, of sentience in places where only circuitry lay. The brainships, at their heart, were merely the biological circuitry that had once belonged to a living body. She did her best to ignore the uncomfortable squirm in her mind that came with that thought, of what separated a biological entity from certain technological ones that had seemed to be so self-aware and the gray area of the scant few experimental brainships. 

But what could she say? She was a prisoner here and at the crew's mercy. Locked into the biopack still wrapped around her forearm, she couldn't even get off the medical couch at the moment, merely stare at the ceiling and mentally squirm at her own thoughts.

And through it all, the sensation of that Extermination Drone staring at her wouldn't go away.


	3. Adding to the Mix

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have NO idea why I'm enjoying Asshole Alex so much, but there ya go.
> 
> Also, it's surprisingly fun to just MAKE STUFF UP. Exhausting, but fun. :D

A scuffle of sound woke Lena from a light doze to find herself wishing the new arrival was the prickly Alex. Because this fellow was intimidating and she was all too aware of how trapped she was. It was clear he was Borad, rich brown skin with the particular texture that was not so much scaly as earth baked so dry it cracked. For a moment he merely regarded her dispassionately with those disconcerting eyes, the ellipse-shaped pupils oriented horizontally to facilitate vision in a hazy desert with an indistinct horizon.

Lena had never actually met a Borad before, as the desert dwellers were notoriously xenophobic and rarely left their inhospitable worlds. Considering how savage space could be, perhaps his people had the right of it.

"Olsen," the man said in a low, ponderous voice like stones moving. "Come. We'll find you something useful to do."

Once freed from the biopack, Lena wrapped the light blanket around herself for some semblance of modesty. "Wait. My companion? Jess? Is she all right?"

The flat stare barely changed as James nodded. "She is currently in Lucy's care."

Her faintly impatient expression earned a ghost of a smile. After internally seething for a long moment, Lena forced herself to ask the quiet question, "may I see her?"

There was a central opening that a glance up or down revealed ran up the center of the ship, populated mostly with open ladders and enough room to jump from level to level. Lena startled at the near-zero gravity inside the well that made climbing almost effortless. Handy trick.

A couple decks away brought them to a chamber where Jess lit up with relief and set aside the food preparation in her hands to race over to Lena and they could cling tightly. 

"Regretting staying with me yet?" Lena asked quietly and soaked up the balm of Jess' watery chuckle. The first thing she'd done when she came of age was to grant her oldest companion her freedom, but Jess had refused to leave, no matter the danger of staying at Lena's side.

"We've made it this far."

Olsen drew a cup of steaming water from a spigot and sprinkled a small pinch of dried plant material over it before handing it to his charge. Figuring that if the crew had meant her any harm they would have done so by now, Lena breathed deeply of the cup and relished the warm, smoky notes of Eldrit tea, a favorite relaxant.

Barefoot and dressed in baggy clothes that made her look all the smaller, Lucy was no less intimidating. The big knife in her hand had paused briefly at Lena's arrival, but gone back to the blur of motion over some sort of tuber big as her head. The start of savory smells were wafting from the large pot she was sending shavings of her tuber into.

A big pot that sat atop a bulky machine clearly not originally suited to the job, but modified heavily. Aghast, Lena realized why the hulking machine seemed so familiar. "Is that a recycling matter reactron?"

The machines were normally used for mining, able to create and focus large amounts of heat to break up rock and minerals. Here, it was boiling stew.

Lucy's fast knife paused, somehow so much more threatening in its stillness. In the glow of the reactron, her ellipse-shaped pupils, not quite pointed at the narrow ends, slanted nearly to the horizontal, a mix of her species. It made for an unnerving stare. When she spoke, her voice was low and icy. 

"Yes. It also heats our water. And before you get yourself fluffed up in a snit, yes, we know what the fuck it is and how much it's worth. But since your sort deem us public enemy number one because we dare to keep a friend out of forced servitude, we can't exactly sell something so carefully regulated. So save me the histrionics and drink your damn tea. Which, by the way, you can thank said reactron for. As well as a hot shower we'll get you to next. And clean clothes, etcetera. You best thank fate it was Captain Danvers that snatched you, because space can be a terrifyingly dangerous place. Just keep that in mind." There was a frightening edge to her fanged-toothed smile. "Particularly when your ship has a mind and feelings of her own."

"Lucy!" Kara objected, making both of the prisoners jump in reflexive alarm. "I wouldn't hurt you. Lucy is just being a jerk."

Whatever Lucy muttered under her breath made Kara gasp in childish outrage.

Lena missed the humor of the interaction when she realized with horror that the next thing Lucy had set her attentions to was a frozen haunch of some skinned beastie.

"Look, lady, I'm Felid," Lucy grunted as if it weren't obvious in her looks. "With enough Borad to ensure I truly detest water and have an appetite for meat. So sneer all you want at animal parts, but I get damn sick of flavored protein slop and I'm relishing a good, hearty stew."

Lena tried to ignore the familiar squirm in her belly at the discrepancies of what should be reality and what her life had been so far. Of course she couldn't legitimately sneer at animal protein, she was half Mertan! Yet she avoided it as best she could, surviving off supplements that would keep her systems healthy. That didn't stop the socially unacceptable cravings though. Even Jess looked intrigued and hungry and she was more Human than Lena herself!

"Lucy, come on," Kara coaxed. "They're our guests for now."

"Fine," the Felid growled. "You get me the damn fish out of stores and I'll whip something up for our guests." The sneer on that last word offset any kindness to the offer, but Lena was grateful nonetheless. Fish she could deal with so much better. "Now get out. James and the cap will keep you occupied."

More crowded decks passed until they veered off towards the outer hull, the passages become a rat's warren of narrow spaces. When James sighed wearily, Lena almost smiled at his clear consternation. It was fairly clear he was borderline stuck.

"Jimmy, that you?"

"Yeah, Alex. I have your new sidekick in tow."

"Yeah, well she's smaller than you at least. Come on down, Princess, and watch your head."

James reached up and pulled up his mass, leaving Lena to unwillingly crawl under his feet and towards the dim glow of a work light. Slithering through a hatch barely big enough for someone of Lucy's stature, Lena found herself nearly nosing the muscled calves of Captain Danvers. Shifting her weight so that one booted foot raised up and Lena could wriggle by, she could finally sit with some dignity and bat at her dusty knees and palms. They were in what looked like the inside of an old 20th century computer tower at three quarter Human scale.

"Just hang out here with me," Alex instructed, never looking away from where she had pulled the guts out of several major wire junctures. Lena wasn't stupid and had no doubt the captain was aware of exact where she was and what she was doing, even without visual contact.

Now, Lena had a lifetime of practice in sitting still and quiet during the most boring of occasions, but after several hours of being cooped up in a very cramped space with Alex's admittedly fine-looking distractions and listening to her mutter foul things was wearing Lena's manners down.

"Perhaps I could help?"

The quiet offer was met with a flat look and Lena swallowed down her bristly reaction. Arrogant asshole.

Another twenty minutes made her desperate enough to try again. "I have extensive engineering experience. I--"

Alex rounded on her, expression stormy. "Princess, unless you are an expert at sine-wave Avarid sensor arrays cobbled up with a Dranellian processing unit, and by some miracle convince me that you are trustworthy and not a drain on my limited resources, you are wasting my time. And I have little of that as well. Being hunted every moment of every day does that to a body."

Forcing patience, Lena held the flashing brown eyes, refusing to back down.

"I am reasonably well-versed in Avarid technology, and my interfering with the ship containing my very vulnerable self would be stupid."

And for the first time since they had met, Alex stepped down. It wasn't a retreat, but a silent truce.

Some surprisingly harmonious time passed while the two women worked. When Lena went at the sensor array with competence, Alex turned her attention to the processing unit. Periodically, Kara would interject a comment or a reminder to hydrate, which invariably resulted in Alex teasingly grumbling about being nagged.

Eventually Lena made a little grumbly noise of distress, catching Alex's attention. The smaller woman was staring at her filthy hands and blinking sweat out of her right eye.

"Need me to call down your slave sidekick?"

It was a low blow and Alex winced at herself even as Lena turned on her, nearly vibrating with rage.

"I freed Jess the day I came of age, you bastard! Stop assuming you know a damn thing about me! You sneer that I know nothing about you and judge you for what you are and what you've done! Look in the fucking mirror, _Captain_."

The scorn was as clear as real daylight on Alex's title and in that moment, she didn't feel much like a captain. She was angry, always so damn hurt and angry with anything that smelled of Imperial trappings. Taking that out on this dispossessed royal was hardly befitting the person she wanted to be.

"I don't trust you," she said quietly, "but I will get off you. That's only fair."

Digging into a pocket, Alex found one of the ubiquitous little towels she had in various places and handed it over. For a long moment Lena was ready to tell her off, but took the scrap and mopped off her face with it.

It took a little time for Lena's breathing to slow and calm to settle, but no other words were exchanged between them outside of the business at hand.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things begin to thaw…

Hours later, Lena had not only assisted on her end of the project, but scooted over to and added in dexterous hands to Alex's tasks directly. The captain wasn't used to someone in her space like this, what with Lucy being the only physically small one on the crew and zero gift with electronics. The last person to do this was… Alex shoved that hurt away and kept her mind on business.

Mostly.

Lucy's voice broke into the room suddenly. "Soup's on. And tell her highness that I have a plate of nice juicy fish cleaned and cooked. Jess is eyeballing it hungrily, so shake a leg."

Alex wasn't sure what made her want to smile when Lena's stomach growled.

"Be there in ten, Luce," Alex called out from the confines of her workspace. Finishing up the connections she'd been fiddling, she made a satisfied noise to herself. "Run your di-ogs, Kara. Let's see how this fix-it works," Alex instructed as she wriggled out of the equipment housing and leaned over her knees to stretch out her back. She was too young to feel so old.

Kara hummed happily over the ship's comms and Alex was so glad to hear the sound. Without a physical body to interact with, Kara's companions knew her by tone, the when and how she spoke.

"Whoo hoo!" Kara crowed after a couple minutes. "Works like a charm. Go team… Lenex? Does that work? Alena? Whatever. Okay, Cap, I have all my externals online again, where to now?"

"We'd best go hit your girlfriend up."

One could almost hear the blush in Kara's harrumph, and Alex's chuckle was warm.

"Okay Princess," Alex continued to speak, this time her attention on Lena, who noted that her gentle tone of voice didn't change. "We have a pit stop to make and can get the obligatory ransom demand fired off to get you home in one piece. In the meantime, you must be as hungry as I am."

Dignity be damned, Lena was starving. She eagerly squirmed out of the cramped workspace and followed Alex through the maze of the ship until she could hear the babble of voices. The small kitchen was packed with bodies perched on any surface that could hold a foot or buttcheek. 

All of them fell silent as Alex framed herself in the doorway, Lena nearly ready to climb her back to get to the savory smells.

"Smells fantastic, Luce." 

"Well, leave it to the bastard to have good stuff on hand."

They all chuckled, bodies shifting expertly to accommodate the new arrivals. Lucy nudged a square, covered container at Jess, who held it out to Alex, who passed it back. Not giving a flying damn about dignity, Lena let herself be herded past Alex's lanky bulk and dropped to sit at Jess' feet. Peeling open the container, the assault of delicious smells was almost painful. A tap on her head had Lucy handing down a sturdy set of utensils so that she could dig in.

It had been years since Lena had truly indulged her body's wants. The flaky, simply cooked trio of small fillets were heavenly and she did her best to fight down the animal rumble of pure pleasure in her throat. There was a bed of fat little grains lining the bowl, chewy and full of flavor. As she scraped along the bottom, she brought up what she was sure were shavings of the tuber Lucy has been dismantling earlier. What flavor and delicious drippings the grains had missed, the tuber had soaked up. Real thought had gone into the meal and it was far more than she had expected.

With a bit of effort, Lena saved the last few bites, staring at them for a moment before swallowing her pride and tugging Jess' pantleg. "Jess? Might I trade you? The stew does smell wonderful."

If Jess was surprised, she hid it masterfully. With a nod, she swapped and also hummed happily over the fish and grains. The stew was richer, more complex, the bits of meat in her teeth a disconcerting sensation, but it was also delicious.

With a sated belly came the swamping waves of exhaustion and Lena barely noticed she was listing off into Jess' calves.

"This is better than we were eating on Captain Lord's frigate," Jess said in a warmly complimentary tone. A chorus of chuckles reminded Lena where she was, but she was too drowsy to really react.

"Everyone full up?" Alex asked and must have been satisfied with her guest's bleary expressions. "Good. Water or sonic?"

Before Lena could formulate an answer, Jess jumped in. "Water. The last thing you need is to have your teeth on edge from a sonic shower, Lena. You clearly are desperate for sleep."

Grumbling childishly, Lena let the two women pull her to her feet and prod her through more of the confines of the ship. She was beginning to see the pattern of it now, the Imperial lines beneath years of modifications by the crew. Far up the near-zero-G ladders, where the ship's contours were tapering to the nosecone, Alex diverted her companions off to a door with an old-school crank handle on it.

"Down there is the shower," Alex said, gesturing at yet another ladder tucked into a hole to the side of the walkway. "I'll pull out some clothes for you both and leave them here. Towels are racked above the ladder. Take your time and use all the water you want. Everything gets run past the reactron to be purified. Take the bed, I've got a nest above I'll use. Just behave yourselves or I'll sic Kara on you."

"We just want everyone safe," Kara chimed in. "You and us both."

"Thank you, Captain, Kara," Jess said gratefully and prodded Lena towards the roughly-constructed ladder. It dropped them into a bucket the size of a small personal transport that had been welded to the deck above them. Pipes in the ceiling had been tapped into for several types of shower heads, an even wider variety cobbled together on the wall.

"The captain likes her cleanliness," Lena quipped and Jess only chuckled and started shucking off her clothes. 

"You know how crowded ship life can be."

"Too well."

"I could offer a bath," Kara offered. "But you are both very tired. Let me know if the temperature is too high. I swear sometimes Alex is trying to cook herself."

"I heard that," Alex called out from above, making Kara giggle.

The water really was at the edge of too hot, but Lena relished it on her tired body, washing away the grime of hard work, soothing aches and pains. Her hands in particular were raw and aching, unused to such hard labor. Yet, it had been exhilarating to get so… involved. She'd always been happiest creating and building, not standing about waiting to be a pawn yet again.

Clean and warm and barely awake, the Imperial pair dried and dragged themselves up the ladder to find thin, comfortable clothes left out to climb into. Barely awake, Lena twisted her hair up and crawled across the decedent bed, awash with pillows and thick bedding and a riot of textures. Snuggling into a particularly large pillow, she breathed deep of the captain's warm, earthy scent and barely felt Jess settle in back to back with her as sleep closed in.


End file.
